February 2023 – A Lovely Gift from Lodi

I was relieved I didn’t have to write a blog post for January as its always been my tradition to devote that post to the previous year’s recap. I was relieved because I really just couldn’t talk anymore than I already had about last month when we lost my two year old nephew. February 2023, life, though never the same, does just keep going on – so ugly but the truth nonetheless. One thing we are all thankful for is that we have had an absolutely beautiful and mild winter. So lovely in fact that no matter what happens after this I don’t think you’ll be hearing any of us complaining.

Remarkably we’ve had days upon days of temperatures in the 30s and many days over the past couple of months that we even hit 40 degrees! Which is basically unheard of for northern Minnesota.

Usually no one wants to be here in January and February lol. I got groceries one day in February 2023 and it was literally raining outside.

I cant remember a regular down pouring rain in February in all the years that I’ve lived here.

(Of course it froze and turned to snow later – BUT STILL)

Early on this winter though we got hit HARD by a week of serious snow fall… our old barn took it very hard. Though I am used to her fallen state, I will admit that this last blow to her was tough to see.

The entire left side of the hay mow has collapsed.

Lodi’s birthday is late January and mine is late February making him 41 and me 37. Its amazing how much stuff you own at this point in life that you remember acquiring over 20 years ago…

Of course valentines was also this month and Lodi made it particularly special for me though we aren’t big “holiday” people.

He bought me a bouquet of daisies and a lovely card while I made us dinner determining, once again, that everything is better cooked in the air fryer even rib eye steaks!

February 2023 Lodi received an offer job-wise that he couldn’t refuse so we were also celebrating his new opportunity. It also came with him being able to take two weeks off before starting which meant he had a bit of time on his hands.

I told him to just chill out and enjoy it! Instead he decided to give me just the sweetest Valentine’s gift ever.

New butcherblock countertops in the kitchen!

I know I mentioned in a past blog post that he’s been wanting to get us new countertops for awhile now and how I had just become blind to the terrible counters I’d been living with. (I think I compared it to living with a bad knee, you just live it.)

I’ll post fully about them soon but, for now, here’s a couple of quick pics.

I knew it would be dramatic but the change for me is ridiculous. I feel like I’ve been living with an unfinished kitchen all this time… and it was affordable too!

February 2023 my workshop / office is coming along. I got the tables painted, a new shelf unit installed along with an extra table that gave us a ton more space to spread our tools out on.

it is far from done yet but so far I’m pretty thrilled.

I also got that thrift store floor lamp painted for our living room and will be recovering our coffee table too. So with those two additions I think our living room may just deserve a rearrange, little redesign and maybe an all new reveal post as well.

We also have that little empty corner in our kitchen that I’m excited to furnish but that will require spending a bit more money than I want to spend right now as we’re finally caught up after the holidays.

So I’ll be waiting on those two projects – its not like I don’t have plenty of things to work on in the meantime lol.